


Etiology

by asuralucier



Category: Ozark (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Creepy kids, Gen, Poor kids, Sibling Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 17:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16202204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: "You think your family's fucked up? Well, ours is getting there too."Jonah, Charlotte, and Wyatt after Wyatt's expulsion.





	Etiology

“ -- Are you driving to see Wyatt?” 

His sister whirls on him, and the guilt is only telligible in Charlotte’s eyes for a second. After that, it’s gone. She shrugs, as if it’s no big deal that she has been caught. After all, it _isn’t_ really a big deal; Jonah has kept worse secrets with and for his sister. In terms of the stock market; in terms of representing Wyatt as a figure that states a statistical relevance, Wyatt really isn’t that. Jonah waits, as Charlotte arranges herself again. She’s always needed more time, more _attention_ , but that’s fine, too. 

“What about it, Squirt?” “Squirt,” is, as far as Jonah can tell, mostly dependent on context. It blows with the wind and can carry affection or injury. He thinks he and Charlotte once heard it on TV and then Charlotte had put on one of her “cowboy voices” -- _Hey there, young Squirt!_ \-- and Jonah had laughed for real. The laugh might have even descended into a giggle, but it’s like someone has taken a big eraser to that part of his brain. 

“Can I come?” 

“...Why?” She narrows her eyes. 

“It’s my fault,” he tells her. “I’d like to apologize to him in person.” Jonah turns his gaze on Charlotte again. “Unless you wanna fuck him, or something. Then I don’t have to come.” 

“ _Jesus_ ,” Charlotte puts her hand over her eyes and breathes loudly, the way that his father does sometimes. “ _No_. We’re just friends.” 

“Friends can fuck,” Jonah points out and Charlotte makes another bubbling noise in her throat. “But never mind.” 

 

Ruth is there when Charlotte pulls up to the unpaved road that counts as the Langmores’ driveway. She gives both of them a dirty look, but doesn’t tell them to go. 

Charlotte pushes her way into the trailer without knocking, as if she has any right to be here. Jonah follows, keeping his head down. 

Wyatt is sprawled out on a saggy, yet somehow also overstuffed sofa. His eyes are trained and vacant at the Mario Kart game he has going on the screen. “I said I want to be left _alone_ , Ruth.” He says, without looking up. 

“It’s just me,” says Charlotte. “Well, us. Jonah’s here too.”

Wyatt’s eyes flicker for a moment towards him, and Jonah feels a bit silly stepping out from under his sister’s armpit, but he does. He doesn’t quite understand it, the way he doesn’t quite understand some of the notations beside some of the names in Buddy’s rolodex, but it all feels very important. Weighted. When Jonah looks down at the other boy’s hands, he notes that Wyatt’s knuckles are still bruised, but not bloody. “Hi, I um.” 

Wyatt sighs and puts down the controller, “Guys, I’m not really in the mood. Can you leave, please?” 

What Wyatt wants is simple, to be left alone. Jonah feels as if he gets that. When the world gets so bizarre and crazy that the only thing that makes sense, is that you gather yourself up -- even if there isn’t that much of you _left_ \-- and go sit in a basement somewhere for a while. Or a trailer, that works too. What Charlotte wants is in a way kind of simple too. She wants to be normal. She wants to sulk the way teenage girls do, and rebel in a very specific way that would have had any set of moral, upstanding parents pulling their hair out but their parents have always had bigger problems. More difficult problems. 

Jonah doesn’t know what he wants. He once thought he wanted to be like his dad, to be let in on family secrets, but recently he’s thinking he doesn’t want to be that anymore. 

“Okay, we’ll leave if you want,” Jonah says. “But I just want to say I’m sorry, okay? And that you didn’t have to do that. For me.” 

Wyatt shrugs, “Whatever. I did it, so.” 

Charlotte shoots Jonah a look over her shoulder, “You’re making it worse, Squirt.” she hisses. 

Jonah shrugs too. Maybe Charlotte doesn’t mean it when she says they’re just friends, her and Wyatt. Girls, as far as he can tell, are very good about saying the exact opposite of what they mean. His mother is certainly good at that, saying what she doesn’t mean, but also saying what she wants. And yet those distances are forgiven because she’s in politics.

“Hey,” Jonah starts over again. “You think your family’s fucked up? Ours is getting there, too. You can hit me if you want.” 

“ _Jonah_ ,” says Charlotte, “What the hell.” 

And yet, Jonah can see that he’s got Wyatt’s attention. The other boy gets up and switches off the television, stretches. He is so very skinny. “I can hit you?” 

Jonah is careful now, to step away from his sister. He squares his stance, planting his feet a shoulders’ width apart, the way Buddy had told him to do once. “You can hit me. If you think it’ll make you feel better.” 

For what it’s worth, Jonah thinks it will make him feel better.

“I’m still kicked out of school,” says Wyatt. He flexes his fingers and Jonah follows the moments of his hands up to the twitching muscles in his arms.

“Screw school,” Jonah says. “You’re too smart anyway.” 

Wyatt weighs that in his fist, and swings. It’s a mean uppercut and makes contact with Jonah’s solar plexus. He falls, but doesn’t give up much room. When he coughs, his lungs hurt. 

“...Better?” Wyatt says. 

“Better,” Jonah echoes.

**Author's Note:**

> This may or may not be a beginning of a sprawling AU where these three kids run away together, but anyway. Where is all my Ozark fic??


End file.
